Get Your Hopes Up by Aly Taylor

You see, it is hard for me to admit this because I have a super laid back personality, and pride myself on not sweating the small stuff. I am low maintenance, and I HATE drama. I am all about encouragement over here, not criticism.

Anyone else? Can I hear a “What, What?!?!?” “Amen sister?!”

But, as hard as a try to push the whole “don’t have expectations” thing out of the way, it still creeps up. I am all about progress here people, not perfection!

My husband and I are high school sweethearts. We started dating when I was 15 years old, and this is an example of when the whole “expectations” thing got the best of me.

It was my 16th birthday, and Josh (my then boyfriend, now hubby) was coming along on our family beach trip. I immediately started thinking up in my head of what he would be doing to celebrate my birthday.

Here were my ideas. Please don’t laugh. Okay, well you will, but here they are anyway:

· A big gesture at a family event one night on our trip?

· A sentimental gift?

· Or maybe even one of those airplanes that fly in the sky at the beach with a big “Happy Birthday Aly- I love you!?”

Ha, yes my expectations could be extreme at times, but that is what was going on in my almost 16 year old high-expectation head of mine.

As I woke up the morning of my 16th birthday, I looked in the room Josh was sleeping in. His door was cracked, but I didn’t see him in his bed. My mind immediately started running. That could only mean one thing, right?!

I imagined him out on the beach decorating our chairs early that morning. This had to be what he was doing!

I went down stairs and noticed a walkie-talkie was gone. Yes, I did not have a cell phone, and that is how we communicated while at the beach. I figured he had taken a walkie-talkie down to the beach to be able to hear from my mom of when I was headed out there so he could get everything set up.

Everything I saw kept supporting my idea of him on the beach setting up a big 16th birthday bash.

Wow, this day was going to be so special!

So, out to the beach I walked, and as I was looking for the balloon display and 16th birthday banners, I saw nothing.

Yes, that’s right. Nothing.

I put my chair out and laid there trying to talk myself down from the disappointment.

Here’s what I was saying to myself:

“Aly how stupid of you to think he would do something for your birthday!!!”

“Don’t be mad at him. That will totally run him off.”

“Why did you get your expectations up? You are ruining your birthday!”

I laid out in my chair by myself for a few hours, and then I went back inside to now actually peek more through that cracked door that Josh was staying in – only to find him sound asleep!

I was frustrated. I was angry. And then I felt crazy and stupid for even allowing myself, yes, MYSELF to ruin my birthday morning.

I got myself together and determined to not let this ruin my day. We were at the beginning of our relationship, so I kept this little story and feelings to myself until years later.

Thankfully, I didn’t let it ruin my day, but this was the first time in my life that I had to accept and embrace that my “laid-back, no drama” self struggled with having high expectations.

From that day forward, I had to continually tell myself to lower my expectations. As I did this, I found I wasn’t nearly as upset when something didn’t go the way I had foreseen it to go. If I just kept my expectations low, I learned that I wouldn’t be setting myself up for hurt. This seemed like such a better way to live.

This is what I would tell myself:

“Don’t get your hopes up, Aly. If you don’t put yourself out there, you won’t get hurt. Stay safe. It isn’t fun to be disappointed. Just know that people are flawed, and if you keep your expectations low, how happy you’ll be when people exceed these expectations!”

What great advice!

My life quickly became better and more fulfilling when I started doing this. I truly do suggest doing this with people. People are flawed. We have to get our minds off of ourselves and what we deserve.

The only problem with this theory of thought–not getting your hopes up–is that we take this good advice when dealing with people, and we do this same thing in our relationship with God.

We CANNOT do this.

The whole “don’t get your hopes up” thing with God isn’t setting you up for prayers to be answered. It is setting you up for your prayers to be stunted.

With God, We MUST get our hopes up.

“But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.” Micah 7:7

I have a crazy, God-breathed, supernatural story all about seeing God’s miracles and faithfulness in my life. Each one of these miracles I have seen God do have started with me believing this simple phrase:

Get Your Hopes Up.

When I was 24 years old, I was diagnosed with a highly aggressive form of stage 3 breast cancer. We were told to lower our expectations as my healing had less than a 20% chance of happening.

I got my hopes up and was HEALED.

After adopting our first daughter, we were told the birth mother was wavering in her decision to keep the baby. Everything within me told me to protect myself, stop bonding with this baby, pick up my healed self, stop getting my hopes up, be thankful and walk away.

I got my hopes up things would change, and the birth mom audibly heard from God that we were the parents, and we had our first daughter – our miracle, Genevieve Rose.

After my breast cancer treatments, we were told my chances of becoming pregnant were impossible, as chemotherapy had damaged all of my eggs.

I got my hopes up and got PREGNANT with yet another miracle daughter, our Vera Alyce.

A month into my pregnancy, we learned that the birth mother from our first daughter was pregnant again, and she asked us to adopt this baby (another girl), Lydia Joyce, and we said YES!

Our last 2 daughters were born just 11 days apart. After experiencing our miracle baby Vera’s birth, Lydia was born and the birth mom made a decision to try and keep her.

I was completely devastated, and I remember thinking, “This could not be happening again!!!” We were crushed beyond our wildest imagination.

Why did we get our hopes up?

Why would we expose ourselves to this much hurt and pain?

How stupid were we?

This hurts so badly!!!

Here’s the thing: Did you know that God’s goodness never stops, even in the middle of pain?

His desire is not to have you experience pain to simply experience pain, but for you to experience His goodness in full, and often times that comes through pain.

After putting ourselves out there again, after getting our hopes up, again, God did the impossible yet again.

We got our hopes up YET AGAIN and our third daughter became a Taylor. The birth mother at the last minute chose for us to be the parents of our Lydia, against all odds.

God didn’t have to do it again. And if he hadn’t done it again – if it hadn’t been His will for us to have Lydia, we would still be praising Him and still getting our hopes up.

We choose to get our hopes up simply because His word says to do it, and if God’s promises are conditional (and many are), I must do my part if I want to see those promises come to pass.

Sometimes we have to get to a seemingly impossible situation to get our hopes up when it makes no sense at all. This ”foolish” faith is what makes us stand out from the world.

This is what and where God wants us.

He wants us getting our hopes up in the small moments and the big ones. You may not be facing cancer, infertility, or adoption. But God cares about every single detail of your life.

Author Live Original

Join the discussion 8 Comments

Love this and your story. I watched ya’ll show and am amazed to see how God continues to work in your lives. This is a problem I have had struggles with and Loved reading this and have a new perspective on this! Thanks Aly!

Needed this so much!! Been struggling with believing that god has a plan for my life and that he can use me. But I just have to get my hopes up! I just have to do something in faith and believe that it’s not in vain and he’ll use it for good

Moriah the Bible says we are all wonderfully made and God made us all uniquely and special. All of us who believe will struggle because the enemy will attack us. I hope you’ll find hope and encouragement from wonderful witnesses like Aly Taylor and Sadie Robertson. I constantly seek encouragement from wonderful witnesses for God. Right now I’m listening to Pastor Steven Furtick on http://www.tbn.org They have Christian programming 24 hours a day, and most of the day they have 30 minute shows from different awesome Pastors. Even amongst Christians there are some small differences in the explanations regarding the teachings of Jesus and how they are presented, since you mentioned God using you for good I think you’ll really enjoy listening to Joel Osteen who is on at 6 am and 9 am central time Monday through Friday, Joyce Meyer is on at 7:30 am Central M-F, and if you listen to TBN from 6 am central all the way till 6 am the next day you will hear awesome and inspiring witnessing. Also from the TBN site you can link the Hillsong Channel and TBN UK. At 8 am central M-F Life Today and Sheila Walsh are on Hillsong and they are awesome ! They also have wonderful music. Moriah we will have difficult times in life, but please remember that Romans 8:28 says : "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good." I rescue feral kittens who struggle to survive and I talk with God about that verse often and how I pray no matter what happens here on earth He willl make all things that happened here good because we love Him. I’ll close by adding some of my favorite Christian songs, and I’ll be looking forward to reading and hearing more of the beautiful witnessing and singing voice that God has blessed Sadie with. Much Love to you Moriah, and God bless ! Here are links to a few of my fave songs, you’ll probably need to cut and paste them or search the title on Youtube, because I’m pretty sure you can’t click to directly link from this blog :Touch the skyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1RQciil7B0

Dear Aly, Thank you for your awesome encouragement of love and hope that we receive from God. My internal eye cancer and depression was a blessing because that caused me to give my life to God. Right after my eye cancer surgery God blessed me to take pictures of God’s awesome beauty that are sold at charity fund raisers and are seen at http://www.barrycreative.smugmug.com. About a year ago I thought of a melody for the beginning of a prayer that I say often and then I wrote the rest of my Prayer song that was recorded by two professional bands. The slow and fast melodies are linked in the two posts that are on my Facebook page "Dear God We Love You" I’m hoping that a well known singer will record this and any earnings will go to charities that serve God by serving others. I just learned last night that Sadie is blessed with a beautiful singing voice. I’m so thankful that God is blessing Sadie to be such an awesome witness for so many. Aly thank you again for your awesome encouragement of love and hope that we receive from God !

Oh my goodness gracious was this good!!!!!!! Your faith and undeniable belief in God is SO SO SO inspiring. God has blessed your family in so many ways just like He says He will to all those who believe. It’s people like you, who I look up to in more ways than one. I am letting God get my hopes up because He is the man of all righteousness, and He will NEVER fail me. God bless you and your three perfect girls!!!

Thank you so much for this post Aly! As I read this I noticed that I have been elevating my expectation of humans and lowering my expectations for God and his amazing ability and power that I have witnessed time and time again. Have a blessed day!